Nonprofit bakery Bridge Bread has sat on Cherokee Street for more than a decade, steadily providing “restorative employment” to the tenuously housed, often people experiencing homelessness or formerly incarcerated people. People who otherwise have difficulty finding a job can find steady work there, learn transferable skills as a baker, and get support in finding long-term housing.
The bakery has helped around 150 people since its inception, including helping more than 100 sign leases. But Fred Domke, who founded Bridge Bread with his wife, Sharon, in 2011, thinks more can be done. While bakers at Bridge Bread learn to bake staples, like loaves of bread and cinnamon rolls, he believes the nonprofit could better train its star employees in advanced baking skills and management.
To meet that need, Bridge Bread is opening a new bakery in the Loop, in three adjacent storefronts at the northeast corner of Skinker and Delmar boulevards, that will train some of its highest-performing employees in kitchen management and artisanal skills. That new bakery—equipped with a new commercial kitchen—is set to open in January…